


Got Nothin' On That

by Mandergee



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Philinda Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 09:19:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5491913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mandergee/pseuds/Mandergee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes running away doesn't make a lot of sense. And when what you're running from finds you anyway....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Got Nothin' On That

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oparu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/gifts).



> Oparu, my lovely! I hope you enjoy this piece, inspired by your prompt: "Snow catching in hair."
> 
> You're fantastic, and our lovely tumblr friendship means so much to me. <3 Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, and all the love to you!

               “You’ve got snow in your hair.” He knelt beside her in the quiet, reached with shaking fingers to comb them gently through the soft brown. “Melinda, what were you thinking?”

               “I needed to get my time in.” She gestured to the skis propped haphazardly in a nearby snowbank, a set of poles abandoned beside them. Skiing hadn’t been the first activity Phil had expected her to take on- the list of winter electives had been three pages long- and his surprise at seeing her huddled beneath the tree had been enough to take his own mind off of the distance between himself and the warmth of the Academy cafeteria.

               “And it was dangerous to go alone. Take this.” His offer of a flask earned him an arched eyebrow and a smirk before Melinda wrapped her gloved fingers around his for a moment, taking it in her hand and allowing herself a liberal swallow. Her eyes met his, and the warmth beginning to glow in them was heartening. “Don’t tell me you couldn’t find anyone else to go.”

               “I couldn’t.”

               “You could have asked me.” He’d given a coin-toss control over his own choices of winter activity- the copper penny flipping wildly in the air with the weight of ‘snowshoeing’ versus ‘ice fishing’, landing on heads and ushering him off to the supply shed in search of snowshoes soon after. The snowshoes themselves had come off the moment he’d slogged down the path and seen the familiar plum coat against the snow. Huddled against a tree, head on her knees, and he’d known it was Melinda before he’d even managed to traverse the next snowbank. _I’d know that hair anywhere_. Even in the haze of a snowy day, it shone like burnished copper in the light.

               “Phil- I couldn’t ask you.”

               “Why not?” It was new, the expression that crossed her face as he leaned back on his heels, watched her curiously. Whatever it was she was thinking about had colored her face a shade that matched the hat tugged hastily over his head- a captive from the lost and found box, necessary for the thinning hair he’d cursed since the first year of college. “If you wanted to be alone, Melinda, you could have found a million other ways to do it.”

               “It wasn’t that.” The flask back in his hands now, she let her fingers drift down to the exposed skin of her ankle, color now a deep purple that matched the jacket keeping her warm. Judging from the wince as she pressed them against it, he thought, it wasn’t likely she’d be moving back to campus the same way she’d arrived. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

               “Then what was it that made you think it was safe to go out here _by yourself_? It’s snowing- or was,” He corrected himself, realizing that the snow he’d admired against her hair so recently had finally stopped falling. They were alone in the eerie silence, broken occasionally by their own voices and the sound of branches collapsing beneath the weight of winter, and he wondered about what might have happened if the penny hadn’t landed as it did. “You think it hurt my _feelings_ because you didn’t ask me to come?”

               “No.”

              “Then _what_?”

               “I love you, you jerk.” Her face changed color again, having only barely begun to return to normal, and Phil bit back a smile as her eyes cut away to her bruised skin. “I needed to get away from it for a while- figure out what’s going on in my own head before I could come back and tell you.”

               “You went out in the middle of nowhere on skis, alone- so you could figure out how to tell me you loved me?”

               “When you say it like that, you almost make it sound like it was a stupid idea.” His butt was numb now- from the combination of cold seeping through layers of union-suit and jeans- but Phil let himself fall forward onto his knees, pressing his lips soundly against hers and aborting any thoughts about to burst forth. She tasted mildly of cinnamon and cloves- something he hadn’t expected, again- and he realized his day was already full of more surprises than he’d had in a year.

               _Scratch that_ , he reminded himself. _When Melinda agreed to go out with me at all- that was the first surprise of many_.

               “Just don’t do it again, all right?” Her face had been contorted with pain, he could remember, and when he’d trudged up in the snow the pain had only briefly given way to suspicion and shock before she’d tried to pretend it had all been okay. But he’d known- and she’d known he’d have been foolish not to realize something was wrong and she wasn’t going anywhere without his help. "I promise I can take the news if you just find me in the cafeteria and _tell_ me. Or better yet, just find me. Don't head out in the middle of the woods alone."

               Or _anywhere_ alone.

               Ever. Again.

               “I promise.” Phil offered up the flask once more and she studied it before drinking, wiping a stray drop of liquid away from her chin with a smile. “When did you start being so prepared, Coulson?”

              “Boy scout.” He studied the skiis in the snowdrift, the poles beside them and the snowshoes he’d tossed aside so easily.

               “Try again.”

               “MacGuyver.” The admission made her laugh, and as Melinda drank again he wondered if MacGuyver had ever found himself stranded in the snowy woods with a woman who made his heart skip as much as Melinda was capable of doing. How he was going to get her back was the easy part- on his back, hoping he wouldn’t wind up on his face in the snow- but the gear itself would have to stay behind. “But I don’t see a rubber band or a drinking straw, so I think we’re going to have to abandon a few things here if we want to get back before dark.”

               “You know that if we don’t check back in with what we took, Clint is going to hunt us down. He takes equipment managing pretty seriously- especially after Natasha lost those ice skates in the lake.”

               “He can try.” With a grunt he eased her out of the snow, knelt again to allow access to his back, and relief flooded through him as her arms wove securely around his neck. “But I’ll be visiting my injured girlfriend in the infirmary, and he’s going to have to wait to exact his revenge.”

               “More like ‘bill you for the loss’, but I think your girlfriend could pitch in half.” She leaned closer, let her lips brush against his ear as Phil began to move through the snow, falling softly again in a shower of delicate flakes. “Hey. You’ve got snow in your hair.”

               “And your arms around my neck. Snow’s got _nothing_ on that.”


End file.
